If there were any lingering doubts that pro wrestling was a part of
mainstream culture, they were erased this weekend.

Saturday night, The Rock hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live, only the
second wrestler ever to do some. He was genuinely funny and likeable,
and the additional appearances by Triple H, Mick Foley, Big Show and
Vince McMahon only added to the fun.

Friday saw the American theatrical release of the documentary Beyond The
Mat, introducing newcomers to the wacky world of pro wrestling, and
giving hungry fans a look behind the scenes. To promote the movie that
night, director Barry Blaustein appeared on CNN's Larry King Live along
with Foley, who is prominently featured in his film, and Hulk Hogan and
Roddy Piper who are not.

For all it's faults, the Larry King appearances probably made for the
biggest news of the weekend. There were four men in the studio: Foley,
who came off very professional and intelligent; Piper, who was bitter
and disillusioned with today's wrestling; Blaustein, who was
enthusiastic and heaped praise on pro wrestling; and King, who was
somewhat goofy and overbearing and interrupted more than one thread of
discussion just as it was getting interesting. Hogan was on satellite
from his Florida home, and was open about the business in a way he
rarely has before on such a national scale.

The show aired many clips from the Beyond The Mat documentary, one clip
from the upcoming Ready To Rumble film (with WCW wrestlers) and footage
a camera crew took with Hogan backstage at a WCW show, showing the
various injuries that he has had, and Arn Anderson and Brian Knobs. They
also aired some footage of a recent WCW Nitro match with Hogan facing
Ric Flair, with Lex Luger interfering. When asked about the match, and
whether he was mad in it, Hogan replied "Uhh, I'm basically doing my
job. I'm not mad at anybody here. I'm trying to entertain the people and
have a great match."

Hogan also addressed the backstage politicking, without talking about
his role in it. "It is a pretty cutthroat business behind the scenes,"
he said. "I mean, guys are doing whatever they can to get ahead and get
themselves strategically positioned because the higher up on the card
you are, sometimes the more money you make. The conditions lately with
WWF and WCW are much better than in the past."

Blaustein said something similar. "What struck me as interesting in
wrestling is that in the ring, the guys must co-operate with one
another. Otherwise, they would literally be killing one another. But
backstage, there's ultimate paranoia running deep, and guys are put up
against each other. I've been in Hollywood for 20 years, and the
backstabbing in Hollywood is nothing compared to the backstabbing
backstage in wrestling."

Piper used words like "manipulate" and "brainwash" to describe the roles
of the promoters in wrestling. But also qualified it by saying that he's
addicted to it, and that pro wrestling is in his blood. "When I came
into it, it was 300 people in a garage," said Piper, who also talked
briefly about his first match in Winnipeg. "It was a different
ballgame. The tyranny -- you're dealing with everything from pedophiles
to promoters, and it's one in the same. It's true."

All three wrestlers said that they had seen the Beyond The Mat
documentary, and Piper called it the "best documentary ever made on
professional wrestling." Hogan said that he hoped to be in the next one,
should Blaustein decide to do another.

To their credit, when King brought up drug use in wrestling, none of the
guests ducked the question. But no one offered solutions either. A clip
from Beyond The Mat with Jake Roberts was shown where he talks about his
substance abuse problems.

Hogan said that drugs are there, and admitted to taking painkillers in
order to wrestle. "It's like any other sport. The athletes take
shortcuts. We had the steroid hysteria during the '80s and '90s, and the
federal government passed laws that made them illegal. A lot of the guys
smartened up. Some of them didn't. As far as the pain pills and stuff
like that, it's prevelant because whenever there's an injury there's a
doctor that will prescribe a pain pill to take the pain away. And in our
sport, there's a lot of pain, and there's a lot of injuries. But the
drugs are prevelant, and they're there today."

Foley, who is the only one of the three who has been active on a regular
basis over the last couple of years, said that he had never taken pain
medicine before he wrestled and had rarely taken it afterwards.

Piper had a different take. "I was king of the frathouse. I rolled out,
I was Rowdy Roddy Piper and the more the trouble I got into, the more
the promoters liked it." He said that getting married and having kids
forced him to clean up his act.

Unions in wrestling were also discussed. "I don't really know how it
would affect us," said Hogan. "If it made the conditions better ... if
it made the money more consistent, if it gave guys insurance and a
health plan, some type of insurance policies, I think it might be a good
idea"

Foley said that "unions would be nice. I don't know how they'd go about
being organized. I don't know how you could do it because there are so
many different wrestling organizations. Yeah, it's a rough business, but
this is something that I knew 15 years ago getting into it."

The Rowdy One thanked Larry King for the opportunity to talk about many
of the issues. "You have done us a big favour here in giving us an open
forum where we can speak without having to worry about what's going to
happen. I don't mind speaking my mind because I'm in a position to." He
also said that he hoped the Beyond The Mat documentary would open the
door to a union. Back in the mid-eighties wrestling boom, he said that
unionizing was discussed but "we couldn't stick together."